Alcohol doesn’t cause rape. But it helps rapists

I once read a police rape incident log which contained details so horrific that they were enough to make the eyes bleed.

Here in deceptively mundane police-speak were cases of young women whose nights out had ended in such savage acts of violation that for days afterwards I couldn’t sleep — such as the nurse, aged 30, who was grabbed, anally raped and then robbed of her handbag. Detectives said that there was little prospect of an arrest.

This was largely because the traumatised victim couldn’t remember where the attack had taken place, never mind what the attacker looked like; all she had was a vague recollection of being shoved against some railings.

She realised what had happened only the next morning when she discovered…